I’ll call you when I’m ten minutes away.
I take out my mobile and text Simon. I’m on my way home. I’m fine. Up the second flight of steps and into the bowels of the station. Here, the sound of feet changes, bouncing between concrete surfaces. My senses feel acutely tuned; I can hear individual shoes as they walk behind me. A pair of heels, clicking ever louder as they overtake me. The soft pad of ballet pumps. The old-fashioned ring of steel on concrete; a set of Blakey’s segs fitted to a man’s shoes. He’ll be older than me, I think, distracting myself by imagining what he looks like. A hand-tailored suit; shoes made from a bespoke last. Grey hair. Expensive cufflinks. Not following me, just heading home, to his wife and their dog and their Cotswolds cottage.
The prickle on my neck is insistent. I take out my Oyster, but at the barriers I step to one side, standing against the wall by the Underground map. The barriers funnel the crowds of commuters to a walk, their feet marching virtually on the spot, as if they can’t bear to be standing still. Every now and then the flow is broken by someone who doesn’t know the rules; who doesn’t have their ticket in hand, and is rifling through their pockets or fishing in a bag. There are audible tuts from the waiting commuters, until the ticket is produced and the line can continue moving. No one pays me any attention. It’s in your head, I tell myself, repeating it in the hope that my body will believe what my head is telling it.
‘Sorry, could I just …?’
I move to let a woman with a small child look at the Underground map behind me. I have to get home. I tap my Oyster and push through the barrier, walking on autopilot towards the District line platform. I start walking towards the end of the platform, to where the doors to carriage one will open, then I think of PC Swift’s advice: Change where you sit. Don’t do what you always do. I turn sharply on my heels and walk back the way I came. As I do so, something moves rapidly on the edges of my vision. Not something: someone. Someone hiding? Someone who doesn’t want to be seen? I scour the faces of the people around me. I don’t recognise anyone, but something I’ve seen feels familiar. Could it be Luke Friedland? Luke Harris, I remember. Let out on bail but ignoring the order to stay away from me.
My breath is quickening and I exhale through rounded lips to slow it down. Even if it is Luke Harris, what can he do on a crowded platform? But nevertheless I take a step away from the edge of the platform as the train approaches.
There’s a free seat on carriage five but I decline an invitation to take it. I manoeuvre myself to the rear, where I can see down the full length of the carriage. There are several seats dotted about, but a dozen or so people standing, like me. There’s a man facing the opposite way. He’s wearing an overcoat and a hat, but my view is blocked and I can’t see him properly. The same sensation creeps over me; a sense of the familiar, yet with a prickle of unease. I take my house keys out of my bag. The fob is a wooden ‘Z’ that Justin made at school. I grasp it firmly in my fist and work the Yale key until it pokes between my fingers, before putting my hand – with its makeshift knuckle-duster – in my pocket.
At Whitechapel I don’t hang around. I wait by the door as the train slows to a halt, impatiently jabbing the release button long before it has lit up. I run as though I might miss my connection, weaving between people who couldn’t care less as long as I don’t make them late too. I listen for the sound of running feet, but there are only mine, hitting the ground in time with each jagged breath.
I make the platform just as my Overground train pulls in, and I jump on with seconds to spare. My breathing slows. Only a handful of people are on this carriage, and nothing about them makes me feel uncomfortable. Two girls with armfuls of shopping; a man lugging a television in an old Ikea bag; a woman in her twenties, plugged in to her iPhone. By the time we reach Crystal Palace I release my grip on the key in my pocket, and the tense feeling in my chest begins to dissipate.